Civil Rights Group Seeks Action On Airport Profiling
Mistreatment reported by another Muslim traveler wearing a hijab
A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy group today sent a letter to President Obama seeking action on concerns that Muslim travelers wearing religious head scarves, or hijab, are now being automatically singled out for additional security measures and may face mistreatment at airports.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent that letter following another report of a Muslim traveler allegedly being treated harshly during a four-hour interrogation by US officials at the Canadian border.
The Muslim woman, who holds a Canadian passport, says she was held for questioning Monday at Halifax Stanfield International Airport, during which she was allegedly shouted at and made to feel like a "terrorist." She was trying to board a plane to Ohio to visit her husband, but was ultimately denied entry to the United States. When the Muslim traveler asked whether she had been singled out because she was the only woman wearing a head scarf, she reportedly received no answer.
In his letter to the president, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad stated: "The American Muslim community appreciates your administration's efforts to keep our nation safe and secure. American Muslims offer their full support in that effort. We believe, however, that airport safety is not enhanced by singling out travelers based on their ethnicity, race, or religion. In fact, we believe profiling is both ineffective and counterproductive. Racial and religious profiling serves to alienate and stigmatize entire groups of travelers, while providing only a false sense of security for the traveling public.
"Effective alternatives to ineffective profiling include better coordination between law enforcement and security agencies, more bomb-sniffing dogs and bomb-detecting devices at airports, better pay and training for TSA personnel, and - most effective of all - screening of passengers based on analysis of suspicious behaviors, not on their skin color or religious attire."
Awad's letter also cited the president's address to the Muslim world last year in Cairo, in which he stated: "[F]reedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion... That is why the US government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it."
Yesterday, CAIR called on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to clarify whether Islamic head scarves will now automatically trigger additional security measures for Muslim travelers.
CAIR made that request after a Muslim woman traveler taking a flight Tuesday from Washington Dulles International Airport reported that TSA personnel first requested that she take off her hijab, then put her through a "humiliating" public full-body pat-down search when she refused.
Nadia Hassan, 40, of Maryland said she was patted down in front of her daughter, 5, and several male TSA staffers. "It was very humiliating. It was very uncomfortable," Hassan told The Detroit News via a telephone interview from California. "I didn't say anything. I didn't want to cause any trouble. ... I'm an American. I'm not a foreigner. My country is treating me this way?"
When the traveler, a resident of Maryland, questioned TSA staff about the way she was being treated, she was allegedly told that a new policy went into effect that morning mandating that "anyone wearing a head scarf must go through this type of search."
On Monday, CAIR said new TSA guidelines, under which anyone traveling from or through 13 Muslim-majority nations will be required to go through enhanced screening techniques before boarding flights, amount to religious and ethnic profiling.
Comments
What a terrible thing to be "patted down", in front male attendants!
I often travel by plane and get "patted down" all the time, and of course I do accept it as a security check , made necessary by some Muslims with a violent and bloody interpretation of their religion.
If there were no islamic terrorists, this poor "victim of discrimination" would never be "patted down" !
I get a good frisking about 50% of the times I fly (quite regularly) - I'm white, european but clearly look menacing!
For me its a bigger concern how lapse security is on other forms of transport which are infinitely more vulnerable than planes.
tl;dr
Oh for god's sake - boo effing hoo - she got an effing pat down - OOOH it was so humiliating-does she think she's the only one who gets a damn pat down? "Im an american why is my country treating me this way?" well the detroit wannabe airplane bomber was AMERICAN. My brother with white hair & freckles got pulled aside coming back from brazil to the states, they not only held him for hours,body search they tore his luggage APART- I MYSELF upon leaving Morocco where I had lived for 6 months & wearing a hijab myself was pulled aside by SEVERAL muslim security guards & NOT AT THE ENTRY GATE, I mean I had already passed the metal detector screening process & was simply sitting in the terminal waiting area & they came to me already knowing my name, etc.,gave me repeated questions about my luggage that had been CHECKED in, not carry on, asking me who packed, saying "we are very curious about your luggage-what is in your bags. One even asked me if I had been "living" with a man while I was in Morocco (against the law there & TOTALLY total outrageous question-god if I said yes I probably could have been arrested & jailed for adultery) then when I looked at him like he was crazy, he quickly yelled DON'T LIE!! THESE WERE MEN HOLDING MACHINE GUNS, man. I told him what was in the bags & said if you're so curious then search the damn bags,quit asking me questions-just look inside!! I don't care!! Was that muslim lady so humiliated or intimidated as I was? HELL NO- You think its not scary being surrounded by weird men with automatic rifles, right in the terminal, menacing you & asking insane personal questions? Man you could disappear in places like that- But did I write a letter to the King of Morocco? NO ! And I'll tell you I have been patted down at the airports in U.S. and not just in front of TSA staffers, in front of the whole damn line of strangers, yeah its uncomfortable but DEAL WITH IT- muslim women dont get any special right just because they don't like it. Nobody likes it. and EVERY BOMBER has been MUSLIM-it would be STUPID to bow to crazy political correctness at the risk of human lives - if they don't like it they need to quit blowing people up !! Also studies have PROVEN that "looking for suspicious people" does not work, and when tested never ONCE were they able to detect even a smuggler, EVEN with highly trained FBI agents-Airports can't afford to put $200K a year "specialists"(that don't work) in every airport in the US. that's ludicrous-so their suggestion is to look out cause bombers act so suspiciously? Man those dudes have been training for YEARS for that moment, they are cool as cucumbers. Or better yet spend millions finding & training more dogs (which takes like 2 years per dog) AND hiring more dog handlers, paying the screeners more (what difference would that make?) the airlines are all already basically bankrupt - who'd pay for all this crap just to bow & scrap to muslim demands. Of COURSE only muslims would make an international incident & write to the damn president of the united states over ONE woman getting a patdown like 1,000's of others do (of COURSE she felt victimized, aren't all muslms VICTIMS?)& one woman denied entry, which quite frankly, who knows how she behaved to actually be DENIED entry - they act all rude, arrogant, aggressive when nobody's watching then turn around & cry crocodiles tears for the world. I saw this every day in Morocco, they make me sick.
My friend Chris who is 6 ft Blonde blue eyes, with a New Zealand passport, working in Canada , coming in to the Usa to visit me, was given a hard time later they said it was because he came 3 months before----
I am sick of the Muslims crying out discrimination --- they are the ones that discriminate! I can give details easliy if any Muslim wants to debate me!! I have been around Muslims for 30 years here and in the Middle East!!
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